went out to the police parking area and picked up his unmarked car-a couple of old firehorses who maybe thought too much about the problems of others and not enough about their own; who cared too much and expected too much, and perhaps could not have existed any other way. I had the idea that he sensed that bond, too, and that that was another part of the reason he had invited me to come along.
Cypress Bay: the town with a little something for everyone…
Twelve
The shadows on the porch beneath the second-floor gallery were deeper and cooler now, with the coming of night, and the faint fragrance of the red bougainvillea was like the wistful memory of a sweetheart and a perfume of long ago. You could see the Pacific from up there-a burning sheet of glass under a fiery sun that was just touching the juncture of sea and sky to the west-and the full sweep of the heavens, where blue had modulated to gold- veined gray. Sunset, laying a golden veil over the land before giving way to the black curtain of night.
Beverly Winestock answered the melancholy chimes, as she had earlier in the day. She looked even more ephemeral now, silhouetted against the shadowed hall behind her, and her dark hair was the same dusky, flowing tapestry; she was still sensual, still desirable, but there was a tenseness in her now, a strain that seemed to rob her of some of her beauty. Her eyes touched my face and moved away, leaving nothing; she looked at Quartermain, waiting, silent.
He introduced himself and showed her his identification and asked her, 'Is your brother home at the moment, Miss Winestock?'
She looked past him, down along the slab-stone steps and beyond the front gate to where the faded-blue Studebaker was parked on Bonificacio Drive-to Quartermain's car parked behind it. Then she looked at me again, tight- lipped, and said to Quartermain, 'Yes, he's here.'
'We'd like to see him, please.'
'What about?'
'We'll discuss that with him, if you don't mind.'
She hesitated a moment longer, and then shrugged and put her back to us and walked away along the hall. Quartermain and I went inside, and I shut the door. Beverly stopped at the entrance to the tile-floored parlor and half turned back to us.
A man's voice called from within, 'Who is it, Bev?'
She did not answer. When Quartermain and I approached, she turned again and disappeared through the arch at the far end of the hall. I watched her for a moment before I followed Quartermain into the parlor, thinking: She's got a wall up now, a protective barrier-cool and aloof and a million miles away. It was down earlier, when I was here, but she's put it back up, and with that tenseness in her it can only mean there's a threat of some kind, to her or to her brother..
Brad Winestock was sitting on the tapestried-cloth sofa, his arms resting forward on his knees; he still wore the brown slacks of the afternoon, and his dark hair was still wind-tangled, but he had shed the blue windbreaker to reveal a ribbed short-sleeved pullover cord-laced from mid-chest to throat in one of the current casual fashions. There was a quart of Jim Beam on the brass-ornamented table in front of him, down about six inches, and an empty glass beside it. I thought that it was probably the bottle he had bought at the Stillwater, and that he had been working on it ever since he had gotten home.
He said, 'Yeah? What is it?'
His voice was thick, and his eyes-a flat brown with too much white showing-were hazy and restless. There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead. Quartermain glanced at me, and I nodded slightly to confirm that this was the man who had been with the balding guy, the man I followed here from Grove Avenue.
He stepped forward and said to Winestock, 'My name is Quartermain-the Chief of Police of Cypress Bay. I'd like to ask you a few questions.'
Winestock seemed to stiffen slightly, and his eyes were furtive things that touched this and that in the room without focusing on anything at all. He was nervous and he was somewhat afraid, and you could see that the last man on earth he wanted to have in his living room was the local Chief of Police.
'What questions?' he asked heavily. 'What about? I haven't done anything.'
'Nobody said you had,' Quartermain told him.
'What do you want, then?'
'I understand you knew a man named Walter Paige at one time.'
Winestock opened his mouth and wet his lips the way a man who has been drinking will do. 'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah, I knew him once.'
'You know he's dead, of course.'
'It was on the radio.'
'When was the last time you saw him?'
'Hell, I don't know. Six or seven years.'
'You didn't know he'd returned to Cypress Bay?'
'No, I never knew it.'
'Who do you suppose killed him?'
'How would I know who?'
'Are you aware of any enemies he might have had?'
'Walt was a good guy, he didn't have enemies.'
'I thought you hadn't seen him in six or seven years.'
'Six or seven years ago, I meant. He didn't have any enemies then.' Winestock's eyes jerked away from Quartermain and moved over me like fevered hands. 'You're the guy that came around here bothering Bev today, the one who found Walt.'
'That's right,' I said.
'She doesn't know anything,' Winestock said. 'What do you want to bother her for?'
'What do you know, Winestock?' Quartermain asked him.
'Nothing. Why should I know anything?'
Quartermain went over and sat down on one of the chairs; I remained where I was, not far from the door. To Winestock he said, 'Would you tell us where you were today?'
'Today? Why?'
'Just answer the question.'
'I was right here, mostly.'
'But you did go out, is that right?'
'Yeah, for a little while.'
'To where?'
'For a drive. Just for a drive.'
'Where did you go on this drive?'
'Down the coast. To Big Sur.'
'Alone?'
'Why? What difference does that make?'
'Were you alone, Winestock?'
'Yeah, for Christ's sake, I was alone!'
'All right,' Quartermain said quietly, 'tell me about the bald man-the one who was seen getting out of your car on the corner of Grove and Sierra Verde earlier this afternoon.'
Winestock blinked rapidly three times, and his hands went out in a convulsive movement toward the bottle and glass on the table; but the hands were spasmodic and he seemed to have lost control of them momentarily. The glass tipped over and fell off the table and rolled under the sofa. He said 'Shit!' in a thin voice and sat back and folded his arms tightly across his chest.
'Well?' Quartermain asked.
Winestock hesitated, and you could watch him searching for an answer. Then: 'A hitchhiker. A hitchhiker I
